Trump seeks to leave his gold-plated stain on the White House

The second Donald Trump presidency is horrifyingly destructive, a bunch of end-times enthusiasts ripping the wire out of the walls, but have you considered that it is also persistently frivolous? Take for instance his $200 million ballroom addition to the White House, which he unveiled plans for on Thursday.

If you were wondering if this proposed addition will be a gilded palace as ugly as one of his homes or as his ongoing gold-plating of the Oval Office, the answer is yes: “Renderings provided by the White House depict a vast space with gold and crystal chandeliers, gilded Corinthian columns, a coffered ceiling with gold inlays, gold floor lamps and a checkered marble floor,” says CNN.

Even the rendering provided by the White House screams super-sized Mar-a-Lago ballroom, which is most definitely not a compliment. 

An American flag flies in front of the White House on July 23.

Trump really does see himself as a master developer, a very special boy because he—and he alone—can build a ballroom. 

“They’ve wanted a ballroom at the White House for more than 150 years, but there’s never been a president that was good at ballrooms,” Trump said on Thursday. “I’m good at building things and we’re going to build quickly and on time. It’ll be beautiful, top, top of the line.”

Truly, that is what the past occupants of the White House have yearned for, an ever-deferred dream that only Trump could fulfill. 

Trump keeps saying that the $200 million cost will be borne by himself and private donors, and that it will be his “gift to the country.” The notion that outside donors will pay for this garish thing is supposed to sound better than taxpayer dollars being spent on it, but all it really highlights is this is just another way to bribe the president.

Indeed, Trump has created many opportunities for donors to line his pockets in the hopes of receiving favorable treatment. You could buy his stupid memecoin, which might’ve gotten you invited to a dinner with him. If you’re a media company, you could agree to settle a frivolous lawsuit filed by Trump in his personal capacity, and donate millions to his future presidential library.  

Of course, the opportunity to make a teeny, little seven-figure donation to Trump’s inauguration fund in order to possibly avoid regulatory oversight has come and gone, so why not figure out a way to help “donate” to build America’s Ugliest Ballroom?

President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on July 30.

The fact this is even top of mind right now is ridiculous. Trump has been busy tearing the government down to the studs for months, but now he wants everyone to focus on his alleged ability to create beauty, to transform a space. He doesn’t have that ability, literally or figuratively. What he’s demanding is a hagiography, a rewriting of history that, as prize-winning reporter Jonathan Capehart put it on Thursday, is a funhouse mirror, a pretense at patriotism that is quite the opposite.

“Unapologetic patriotism is incomplete if it doesn't allow for a mirror to be held up to America, her people, and her president—to hold them all accountable when they have strayed from her founding principles,” Capehart said.

The desire to gold-plate the White House, to fritter away time on building projects and the like, highlights how un-serious Trump is. Yes, he’s deeply serious about using the government to destroy everything he hates, but he’s got people for that now—a whole Cabinet full. But he can’t help but fixate on imposing his tacky stamp on the country and forcing us to stare. 

It’s the same impulse behind the birthday military parade and apparently pressuring the Smithsonian to remove references to his two impeachments. His need for adulation—and gold leaf, apparently—is bottomless.

Elon Musk tries to kiss and make up with Trump

Just last week, Elon Musk accused President Donald Trump of having deep ties to notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Now Musk is trying to be friends again.

After a spectacularly public breakup, the tech billionaire issued an early-morning semi-retraction, sort of apologizing for going scorched-earth on the president.

“I regret some of my posts about President Donald Trump last week,” Musk wrote. “They went too far.”

He didn’t say which posts crossed the line—and honestly, there’s no shortage of contenders. 

As Trump threatened to strip Musk’s companies of their government contracts and subsidies, Musk fired back with a veiled threat that he’d outlast Trump politically, suggested the president should be impeached and replaced by Vice President JD Vance, and warned that Trump’s tariffs would “cause a recession in the second half of this year,” and claimed, “Without me, Trump would have lost the election.” 

Oh, and Musk also accused the Trump administration of covering up the files around Epstein in order to protect the president.

“[Trump] is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public,” Musk posted. (That one’s since been deleted.)

President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk speak to reporters from a Tesla vehicle on the South Lawn of the White House on March 11.

Musk is clearly trying to revive their once-close alliance. In recent days, he’s also shared Trump’s Truth Social posts about the brutal immigration raids and subsequent protests in Los Angeles, and he’s even nodded along to a post suggesting the two are “stronger together.” 

Maybe Musk saw the public wasn’t exactly rallying to his side in the breakup. Perhaps he realized he still wants those government contracts. Or maybe the pressure from Trump’s inner circle finally got to him. Who knows.

What’s not clear is whether Trump wants him back.

On Friday, Trump mostly brushed off the drama, telling CNN, “He’s got a problem. The poor guy’s got a problem.” But by the time Musk’s retraction dropped, Trump’s tone had softened.

In a brief interview with the New York Post on Wednesday, Trump said he thought Musk’s apology was “very nice.”

“I thought it was very nice that he did that,” he said, though he dodged whether he was ready to make up.

And in a previously recorded New York Post podcast released Wednesday, Trump said he didn’t blame Musk for anything but was “disappointed” in him.

Will Trump ever forgive Musk?

“I guess I could,” the president replied in the interview, though he quickly pivoted. “My sole function now is getting this country back to a level higher than it’s ever been.”

Trump also walked back earlier threats to yank Musk’s federal contracts or probe his immigration status—attacks egged on by Steve Bannon, an informal Trump adviser and a loud critic of Musk.

Steve Bannon exits court in New York on Feb. 11.

Notably, Bannon isn’t letting it go. He’s publicly urged Trump to launch multiple investigations into Musk, starting with whether the world’s richest man is an “illegal alien.”

He “crossed the Rubicon,” Bannon said of Musk on Friday. “There’s no going back.”

This week, Bannon ramped things up even more, calling for a special counsel to investigate Musk over alleged drug use, referencing a report from The New York Times that claimed Musk was using while working closely with the administration.

“Pull the security clearance for the drugs, temporarily,” Bannon said. “Investigate the whole drug situation.”

The whole meltdown traces back to when Musk’s role in the administration ended. Once the face of Trump’s push to slash spending and gut the federal workforce, Musk turned on his old boss fast, calling Trump’s signature domestic bill a “disgusting abomination.” From there, the spat spiraled into wild accusations and personal jabs.

There’s some chatter that the recent protests in Los Angeles might’ve prompted Musk’s attempted truce, since immigration is one of the few issues he and Trump still largely align on. Musk’s been echoing Trump’s talking points on the protests, seemingly trying to show they’re still ideologically synced.

Still, trying to make peace with someone you just accused of being involved with a sex offender says more about Musk than anyone else. 

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Trump and Zelenskyy are about to have one seriously awkward meeting

President Donald Trump is set to meet face-to-face with the man he’s repeatedly trashed online. During his first Cabinet meeting, Trump confirmed that he would meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenkskyy on Friday, during his visit to Washington, D.C. And it’s sure to be uncomfortable to watch after his awkward bilateral with French President Emmanuel Macron earlier this week. 

Trump said the session with Zelenskyy aims to solidify a deal that would give the U.S. $500 billion worth of Ukraine’s rare earth mineral rights in return for financial and military support. 

Trump has used his first month in office to push false pro-Kremlin narratives about the cause of the war in Ukraine, saying that Russia did not invade and Ukraine “should have never started it.” 

While the details of the negotiation remain unclear, Zelenskyy told reporters he’ll review the deal’s draft text. He said the text should include a line guaranteeing “security guarantees for Ukraine” from future Russian attacks—a critical point given Trump’s recent history of wavering on U.S. commitments to Ukraine and cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Puti and Trump sure seem chummy.

“Of course, this agreement is about economics. But I asked for there to be at least an understanding that we are seeing things the same way and that all of it is part of future security guarantees,” said Zelenskyy at a news conference on Wednesday, later adding, “My question will be very direct: if the United States will stop support or not? Can we buy weapons? If it’s not aid, can we buy weapons directly from the United States?”

When Trump was asked plainly by reporters earlier on Monday, the third anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, if he thought Putin was a dictator, Trump couldn’t muster the words. 

“I don't use those words lightly,” he said instead. 

But Trump has more than just a recent history of parroting Russian talking points. 

He’s gone on despicable tirades against Zelenskyy online, calling him a “dictator” on Truth Social and siding with Russia on its desire to rejoin the esteemed G7 forum. In an unprecedented move on Monday, the U.S. voted with Moscow-friendly nations at the United Nations against a resolution to condemn Russia for the war in Ukraine. 

During his first term in office, Trump called Ukraine “corrupt.”

The last time Zelenskyy and Trump met in person was in September 2019 at the U.N. Their “improper” quid pro quo phone call in July 2019 led to Trump’s first impeachment. Zelenskyy visited the White House in September during Joe Biden’s administration only a month before the election took place.

“Support for our state and people guarantees of peace and security—this is the key to ensuring that Russia will no longer destroy the lives of other nations,” Zelenskyy said in an address to the Ukrainian people on Wednesday. “I will meet with President Trump. For me and for all of us in the world, it is crucial that America’s assistance is not stopped.”

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Trump’s team has this ironic request of Cabinet nominees

Susie Wiles, Donald Trump’s pick for chief of staff, issued a memo Sunday to Trump’s Cabinet nominees ordering them to stop making social media posts without approval ahead of the upcoming Senate confirmation hearings.

“All intended nominees should refrain from any public social media posts without prior approval of the incoming White House counsel,” the memo said, according to the New York Post.

Wiles also noted, “I am reiterating that no member of the incoming administration or Transition speaks for the United States or the President-elect himself.”

The missive comes after the spectacular flame out of former Rep. Matt Gaetz’s nomination for attorney general and the ongoing controversies of several other nominees, including Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Mehmet Oz, and Tulsi Gabbard.

Gaetz’s nomination was withdrawn after the resurfacing of sordid allegations of illicit drug use and sexual behavior, including sending money to multiple women via PayPal and Venmo. Gaetz’s activity on social media was a key part of the controversy, as the House Ethics Committee's report notes.

“From 2017 to 2020, Representative Gaetz made tens of thousands of dollars in payments to women that the Committee determined were likely in connection with sexual activity and/or drug use,” the report states.

Hegseth, Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, has been accused of financial mismanagement, sexual assault, and public drunkenness. In response to reporting on these allegations, Hegseth has taken to social media to complain about “anti-Christian bigotry” in the media, the “lying press”, and the “Left Wing hack group” ProPublica.

Anti-vaccine activist and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, has also made strange social media posts. He recently posted a meme on X characterizing the medical industry as “financially dependent on you being sick,” as well as a video of himself with CGI-generated electric eyes and a link to his merchandise site.

An anonymous source with the Trump transition team claimed that the order to stop social media posts is not related to the recent online infighting between Trump megadonor Elon Musk and anti-immigration MAGA supporters. But the timing of the edict, coming directly from Trump’s right-hand woman, is extremely convenient.

Musk recently went on a posting frenzy, calling MAGA fans “upside-down and backwards” in their understanding of immigration issues, while telling one person to “take a big step back and FUCK YOURSELF in the face.”

The controversy generated international headlines, and Trump was dragged into commenting on the discussion—a less-than-ideal situation as he prepares for his inauguration.

Trump of all people telling others to be more mindful about social media posts is an ironic development. Trump made a name for himself as a political figure largely due to constantly posting inflammatory messages online. Most notoriously, he called on his supporters to protest the results of the 2020 election after losing to President Joe Biden.

“Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” he wrote.

In the aftermath of his post, more than a thousand were arrested (including Trump), several related deaths occurred, and Trump was impeached for a second time.

But, hey, Trump’s Cabinet nominees won’t be posting on social media for a little while.

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Biden will discuss his legacy—and why Harris must continue it—in speech

Even though President Joe Biden won't be on the ballot this November, voters still will be weighing his legacy.

As Vice President Kamala Harris moves to take his place as the Democratic standard-bearer, Biden’s accomplishments remain very much at risk should Republican Donald Trump prevail.

How Biden’s single term and his decision to step aside are remembered will be intertwined with Harris’ electoral success in November, particularly as the vice president runs tightly on the achievements of the Biden administration.

Biden will have an opportunity to make a case for his legacy—sweeping domestic legislation, renewal of alliances abroad, defense of democracy—on Wednesday night when he delivers an Oval Office address about his decision to bow out of the race and “what lies ahead.”

And no matter how frustrated Biden is at being pushed aside by his party — and he’s plenty upset — he has too much at stake simply to wash his hands of this election.

Biden endorsed Harris shortly after he announced Sunday that he would end his candidacy, effectively giving her a head start over would-be challengers and helping to jumpstart a candidacy focused largely on continuing his own agenda.

“If she wins, then it will be confirmation that he did the right thing to fight against the threat that is Trump, and he will be seen as a legend on behalf of democracy,” said presidential historian Lindsay Chervinsky, executive director of the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon. “If she loses, I think there will be questions about, did he step down too late? Would the Democratic Party have been more effective if he had said he was not going to run?”

Similar what-ifs play out at the end of every presidency. But Biden’s defiance in the face of questions about his fitness for office and then his late submission to his party’s crisis of confidence heighten the stakes.

The last vice president to run for the top job was Democrat Al Gore, who sought to distance himself from President Bill Clinton during the 2000 campaign after the president's affair with a White House intern and subsequent impeachment.

Harris, in contrast, has spent the better part of the last three years praising Biden’s doings—meaning any attempt to now distance herself would be difficult to explain. And she has to rely on the Biden political operation she inherited to win the election with just over 100 days to go before polls close.

Speaking to campaign staff on Monday, Harris said Biden's legacy of accomplishment "just over the last three and a half years is unmatched in modern history.”

Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden in 2021

Trump and his allies, for their part, were eager to tie Harris to Biden’s record even before the president left the race—and not in a good way.

One campaign email to supporters declared “KAMALA HARRIS IS BIDEN 2.0 – Kamala Harris owns Joe Biden’s terrible record because it is her record as well,” calling out high inflation and border policies, among other things.

Biden this week promised the staffers of his former campaign that he was still “going to be on the road” as he handed off the reins of the organization to Harris, adding, “I’m not going anywhere.”

His advisers say he intends to hold campaign events and fundraisers benefiting Harris, albeit at a far slower pace than had he remained on the ballot himself.

Harris advisers will ultimately have to decide how to deploy the president, whose popularity sagged as voters on both sides of the aisle questioned his fitness for office.

The president’s allies insist that no matter what, Biden’s place in the history books is intact.

Biden's win in 2020 "was that election that protected us from a Donald Trump presidency,” said Rep. Steven Horsford, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. “Yes, we have to do it again this November. But had Donald Trump been in office another four years, the damage, the destruction, the decay of our democracy would’ve gone even further.”

Matt Bennett, co-founder of the center-left think tank Third Way, predicted there will be a difference between short-term recollections of Biden and his legacy if Democrats lose in November.

“It is true that if we lose, that will cloud things for him in the near-term” because Democrats will have to confront Trump, Bennett said. “In the long term, when history judges Biden, they’ll look at him on his own terms. They will judge him for what he did or did not do as president, and they will judge him very favorably.”

Biden’s decision to end his candidacy buoyed the spirits of congressional Democrats who had been fretting that the incumbent president would drag down their prospects of retaining the Senate and retaking the House. An all-Republican Washington would threaten to do even more damage to Biden’s legacy.

Already, congressional Republicans have tried to unravel pieces of the Inflation Reduction Act, a central Biden achievement that was passed on party lines in 2022. And they could succeed next year, with a President Trump waiting to sign a repeal into law.

GOP lawmakers could also vote to reverse key federal regulations that arrived later in the Biden administration.

“If the Republicans get dual majorities, they’re going to claw back as much as they can, they’re going to undo as much as they can and not only will that be a disaster for America and the world, it’ll be really bad for the Biden legacy," Bennett said.

Biden aides point to the thus-far seamless nature of Harris’ takeover of his political apparatus as evidenced that the president has set up his vice president to successfully run on their shared record. But the ultimate test of that organization will come in November.

No one will be cheering her on more than the president.

As Biden said to Harris: “I’m watching you, kid."

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White House has things to say as Speaker Johnson reverses course on impeachment inquiry

House Republicans are moving toward a vote on a formal impeachment inquiry as they continue to allege, without evidence, serious corruption on the part of President Joe Biden. The evidence has not gotten stronger since mid-November, when House Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly told so-called Republican moderates that there was “insufficient evidence” to move forward. The politics, however, have changed. Johnson’s move to keep the government from shutting down angered some extremist Republicans, and the expulsion of George Santos just after Johnson declared his opposition to expulsion did not make Johnson look any stronger. Giving the extremists a vote on an impeachment inquiry is an easy way for Johnson to try to shore up support.

The White House is vigorously pointing out the political calculations behind a vote on an impeachment inquiry. "Under fire for expelling George Santos, Speaker Johnson is throwing red meat to Marjorie Taylor Greene and the far right flank of the House GOP by pushing a full House vote on this illegitimate impeachment stunt," White House spokesperson Ian Sams told The Messenger.

"He admitted there is no evidence to justify it three weeks ago, but he’s doing it anyway — further proof that this whole exercise is an extreme political stunt, rather than a legitimate pursuit of the truth," Sams told The Messenger, excoriating Johnson and his flock for a "baseless smear campaign" that he said is "solely intended to satisfy their most extreme members."

Johnson has been consistent in publicly claiming that Republicans have a strong case against Biden, even as he admitted to members of his conference that there was “insufficient evidence.” Now, House Republicans are preparing to escalate their baseless inquiry and thereby escalate their harassment of Biden—leading into an election year.

The politics on an impeachment inquiry vote are clear, as former Speaker Newt Gingrich acknowledged, saying on “Fox & Friends,” “If you’re a Republican, do you really want to guarantee a primary opponent by voting against it?” Gingrich went on to offer up the regular Republican talking points, claiming that Biden is corrupt, but that sentence right there is going to be the basis for at least a few Republican votes on an impeachment inquiry—and with the razor-thin margin Republicans have in the House, that could be the decisive factor.

Republicans are set to move toward impeachment. But their evidence remains even thinner than their House majority, and many of them know it. Partisanship reigns above everything for them.

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The New York Times gives impeachment the both-sides treatment

House Republicans are engaging in a completely partisan, evidence-free impeachment inquiry—but Peter Baker of The New York Times wants to talk about how the White House is treating this as a political issue. And just to get this out of the way right off the bat, the paragraph count before Baker acknowledges that Republicans have no evidence against Biden is seven.

In paragraph eight, he gets around to, “The Republican investigation so far has not produced concrete evidence of a crime by the president, as even some Republicans have conceded.” Even there, the implication is that the Republican investigation has produced some evidence, and they just need to make it concrete. In reality, the Republican investigation has produced no evidence that the president has engaged in any misconduct, let alone a crime.

Before the reader gets to that halfhearted admission, though, they’ve had to plow through a great deal of fretting about how the White House is treating this as political:

Forget the weighty legal arguments over the meaning of high crimes and misdemeanors or the constitutional history of the removal process. Mr. Biden’s defense team has chosen to take on the Republican threat by convincing Americans that it is nothing more than base partisanship driven by a radical opposition.

How exactly would Baker propose the White House make weighty legal arguments when there is no legal case against Biden? When after months of fruitless investigations into Biden, Republicans have simply decided to go ahead with claiming to have found the things they looked for and didn’t find? What would he have the White House or any other Democrats do in response?

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At one point, Baker quotes Julian Epstein, a Clinton-era lawyer for the Democrats of the House Judiciary Committee. “Overall, this has not been handled well by the White House,” Epstein argued. “The team there has violated the cardinal sin of investigations — allowing new information to trickle out continuously and while being stuck in stale Baghdad Bob-like ‘no evidence’ denials.” But if the White House hadn’t allowed new information to come out organically, the Peter Bakers of the world would have said that Biden was suppressing evidence! And how is the White House supposed to characterize the lack of evidence other than to point out that lack? 

As always, Democrats are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. If Democrats were to cede the political fight and allow Republicans to beat the crap out of Biden while the Democratic Party was busy making “weighty legal arguments over the meaning of high crimes and misdemeanors or the constitutional history of the removal process,” it might satisfy Baker for a minute, but it would be a disastrous course of action. As it is, through sheer repetition and relying on lousy media coverage that doesn’t call a lie a lie, Republicans have convinced a substantial fraction of the public that there must be a there there when it comes to Biden and corruption. Imagine if Democrats voluntarily disarmed.

As entries in the Peter Baker oeuvre go, this one is pretty pedestrian and uninspired, nowhere near as creative as the time he wondered at length if it was a problem for Biden that Donald Trump was getting all the attention by being indicted. You didn’t have to be The New York Times Pitchbot to know that the Times would respond to the White House documenting Republican lies about the basis for impeachment and calling on the media to cover it better by fretting about the White House violating norms. As tired and predictable as it is, though, it’s still harmful to have the Times pretending there’s equivalence between a fraudulent impeachment inquiry and attempts to push back on such an inquiry by pointing out that it is fraudulent.

If it feels more like a political campaign than a serious legal proceeding, that is because at this point it is, at least as the White House sees it and would like others to. In the first 24 hours of their inquiry, the House Republicans made no new requests for documents, issued no new subpoenas, demanded no new testimony and laid out no potential articles of impeachment. Instead, they went to the cameras to call Mr. Biden a liar and a crook, so Mr. Biden’s defenders went to the cameras to return fire.

Note the structure here: The White House wants people to see it as political. There’s strong evidence that it is, yet it is always the White House’s pushback efforts that lead Baker’s coverage, as if they came first. Reality is the reverse.

White House tells media to commit acts of journalism

No media report on the House impeachment inquiry targeting President Joe Biden is complete without prominent coverage of the fact that Republicans have no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden, and are instead basing their drive to impeach on lies. Unfortunately, a lot of media coverage is incomplete in this exact way, leading the White House to send a letter to major media organizations, calling on them to do better at reporting the facts.

“It's time for the media to ramp up its scrutiny of House Republicans for opening an impeachment inquiry based on lies,” the White House wrote. The memo details how "Covering impeachment as a process story—Republicans say X, but the White House says Y—is a disservice to the American public who relies on the independent press to hold those in power accountable.”

And in the modern media environment, where every day liars and hucksters peddle disinformation and lies everywhere from Facebook to Fox, process stories that fail to unpack the illegitimacy of the claims on which House Republicans are basing all their actions only serve to generate confusion, put false premises in people’s feeds, and obscure the truth.

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That’s the crux of it: If House Republicans can rely on the media to help spread their lies under the guise of neutral reporting, without a full explanation that these claims are false, then people are going to believe things that are not true. The media cannot fully combat the spread of disinformation, of course, and right-wing media organizations like Fox News are more interested in spreading it themselves. But traditional media shouldn’t let itself be used to launder false claims.

Predictably, the right-wing media immediately started stirring up outrage about the White House issuing “marching orders,” as go-to Republican legal expert Jonathan Turley put it. It’s a dynamic we’ve seen repeatedly.

The White House: Hey, guys, could you try to stick to the facts and identify misinformation as such?

Right-wing media: How dare they??? This is oppression.

That outrage is a reflexive response; in this case it’s also intended to distract from the 14-page appendix accompanying the White House letter, which offers thorough debunkings of seven key lies on which Republicans are basing their claims about the need for an impeachment inquiry. For instance, Republicans insist, “Joe Biden ‘engaged in a bribery scheme with a foreign national.’” But that allegation is based on an FBI document recording an unverified allegation that was initially investigated and dismissed by the Justice Department under Donald Trump.

In short: A claim about something Biden allegedly did before he was president that the Trump Justice Department couldn’t substantiate at a time when Trump was looking for ways to discredit Biden has now become an exhibit in a push to impeach him.

Another of the Republican claims, that "Biden has participated in his family's global business ventures with America's adversaries,” was directly refuted by testimony from two of Hunter Biden’s former business partners—witnesses House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer bragged were going to help him show Biden’s corruption. No such ties have been revealed in the thousands of pages of bank records House Republicans have obtained.

Everything the White House offers there is exhaustively documented, with many of the sources coming from the same media organizations the letter is begging to fairly cover this impeachment inquiry. The facts are widely available, and now they’re neatly summarized in a very transparent 14-page document with lots of links. Reporters and their editors need to use those facts—and not in the eighth paragraph following seven paragraphs of Republicans lying, but right up front, every single time.

Kerry talks with Drew Linzer, director of the online polling company Civiqs. Drew tells us what the polls say about voters’ feelings toward President Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and what the results would be if the two men were to, say … run against each other for president in 2024. Oh yeah, Drew polled to find out who thinks Donald Trump is guilty of the crimes he’s been indicted for, and whether or not he should see the inside of a jail cell.

Go ahead and impeach Biden, House Republicans. See you in 2024

Earlier this week, Fox News congressional correspondent Chad Pergram sent out a short thread of illuminating tweets framed as a "User’s Manual To Where We Stand With Possible 'Impeachments' in the House."

It was indeed helpful, since House Republicans are currently plotting several of them. Pergram’s thread noted that the push to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over something nebulous was “furthest along,” according to a senior House Republican source. "Although that doesn’t mean that it’s THAT far along," Pergram added. In other words, it's not like the GOP caucus has nailed down real evidence in support of actionable wrongdoing yet.

But House Republicans are also weighing impeaching Attorney General Merrick Garland or maybe even President Joe Biden, after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy signaled an openness to it in a Fox News interview on Monday night. McCarthy's public flirtation with the topic was framed to Pergram by a Republican source as "high-level 'trial balloons.'"

"The reason is that McCarthy wants to get a sense of what GOPers want to do," Pergram explained. "And most importantly, where the votes may lie for impeaching anyone."

Anyone? Biden, Garland, Mayorkas—who knows? Maybe they should flip a coin; play rock, paper, scissors; or get out the Magic 8 Ball.

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Back in the day, lawmakers used to investigate these things first, but that's so last Congress. Today’s House Republicans just move on to the vote-counting and figure they'll hash out a rationale later.

Anyhow, the caucus must have been hot on targeting the president because by Tuesday, McCarthy was reportedly "moving closer" to opening an impeachment inquiry.

On the one hand, Republicans say they're "sitting on" loads of evidence. On the other hand, they are justifying an inquiry as a way to obtain information they've been blocked from getting. Which is it, geniuses?  Pick a lane.

At least some Republicans are trying to pump the brakes on playing a completely absurd impeachment card as the country gears up for the 2024 presidential cycle.

“It’s a good idea to go to the inquiry stage,” former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich told The Washington Post. But he cautioned that “impeachment itself is a terrible idea.”

Gingrich, who helped lead the impeachment crusade against President Bill Clinton in 1998, stepped down immediately after the Republican House suffered huge losses in the midterm elections.

Still, Gingrich was essentially clearing the way for McCarthy to appease the Republican extremists who own his speaker’s gavel while cautioning him against an actual impeachment proceeding. Gingrich knows a thing or two about impeachment fallout.

Meanwhile, several House Republicans beelined to reporters to downplay McCarthy's escalation. The Biden White House happily highlighted the discord within the GOP caucus in a statement to The Hill.

  • Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado called McCarthy's tactics "impeachment theater."

  • Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina told reporters, "no one is seriously talking about impeachment."

  • Rep. Tony Gonzalez of Texas offered that voters in his district are concerned about "real issues," like inflation (which is actually dropping) and the border (where crossings have actually plummeted).

“The American people want their leaders in Congress to spend their time working with the President on important issues like continuing to lower costs, create good-paying jobs, and strengthen health care,” said the White House statement, calling Republican machinations "baseless stunts."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also weighed in Wednesday, calling impeachment "not good for the country" while also drawing a false equivalency between House Republicans and the two Democratic impeachments of Donald Trump.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says he's not surprised some House Republicans are proposing an impeachment inquiry of Biden, “having been treated the way they were.” “I think this is not good for the country to have repeated impeachment problems,” McConnell adds. pic.twitter.com/rhKbL8xq0U

— The Recount (@therecount) July 26, 2023

Those impeachment proceedings involved tangible evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors. Then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi actually put off impeachment for as long as humanly possible because she knew it would be a divisive proceeding that could blow up in Democrats' faces. Her hand was finally forced in September 2019 by the whistleblower account of Trump's attempt to extort Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. And then Trump actually plotted a blood-thirsty coup attempt on Jan. 6, 2021, to disrupt certification of the 2020 election and end the peaceful transfer of power. So that was that.

But keep this in mind: Both of Trump's impeachments were rooted in hard evidence—like the transcript of Trump's 'perfect phone call' with Zelenskyy, while the Jan. 6 insurrection played out live on TV screens across the country. The horror of that day and Trump's role in it was then vividly recreated by the Jan. 6 committee, arguably the most theatrically effective congressional investigation in decades. In fact, without the Jan. 6 hearings, special counsel Jack Smith likely wouldn't be preparing to drop a criminal indictment on the matter any day now.

In stark contrast to Pelosi’s reticence, House Republicans are still chasing their tails on a mystery scandal with supposed mounds of evidence—if only they had the subpoena power to access it.

As White House spokesperson Ian Sams noted on Tuesday of the House GOP's mystifying predicament, "This is literally nonsensical."

This is literally nonsensical On Hannity last night and in a gaggle today, he said he needs an "impeachment inquiry" to have the power to obtain info Now, McCarthy claims his investigations already "are revealing" info Which is it? Will Capitol reporters press him on this? https://t.co/p3XWGjwLyG

— Ian Sams (@IanSams46) July 25, 2023

Go on with that impeachment, Republicans. The already deluded GOP base will eat it up, but the rest of the country will weigh in at the ballot box next year. See you there.

White House press shop more aggressively pounding on GOP affronts to U.S. Constitution, democracy

Three times in the last two weeks, the White House has directly and aggressively rebuked Trump-inspired attacks on the U.S. government and the rule of law.

The latest installment came in response to recently revealed Jan. 6-era texts in which Republican Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina urged the Trump White House to declare 'Marshall' law, also commonly known as martial law outside of GOP circles.

"Plotting against the rule of law and to subvert the will of the people is a disgusting affront to our deepest principles as a country," deputy press secretary Andrew Bates told TPM's Kate Riga.

But beyond simply condemning Norman's efforts, Bates also challenged others to do the same no matter what their party affiliation. The move represents an explicit effort by the White House press shop to drive the conversation rather than simply react to it.

"We all, regardless of party, need to stand up for mainstream values and the Constitution, against dangerous, ultra MAGA conspiracy theories and violent rhetoric," Bates urged.

Bates has taken point on this more confrontational posture from the White House communications team, and Republicans have kept him quite busy in recent weeks.

Norman's texts followed on treasonous remarks made by GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia at a weekend gathering brimming with white nationalists. Greene assured the right wingers that if she had organized the Jan. 6 insurrection alongside Steve Bannon, "We would have won. Not to mention, it would’ve been armed."

To be perfectly clear, Greene means the coup attempt would have succeeded in overturning a free and fair election, more blood would have been shed, more lives lost, Donald Trump would still occupy the White House, and American democracy as we know it would have died.

Bates was quick to issue a statement calling Green's comments "a slap in the face" to law enforcement officials, the National Guard, and the families who lost loved ones during the assault on the Capitol.

“All leaders have a responsibility to condemn these dangerous, abhorrent remarks and stand up for our Constitution and the rule of law,” Bates added.

On Monday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre piled on, calling Greene's remarks "antithetical to our values" and noting that, despite her egregious musings, Greene will likely have her committee positions restored when House Republicans assume the majority in January.

"So we should let that sink in,” Jean-Pierre added.

Greene originally lost her committee privileges early in 2021 for making numerous racist and antisemitic comments along with promoting a variety of baseless conspiracy theories about 9/11 and more.

But the parade of White House condemnations first revved up a couple weeks ago after Trump called for the "termination" of the U.S. Constitution in order to reinstate him as commander in chief. Bates issued a statement calling the Constitution a “sacrosanct document," adding that attacking it is "anathema to the soul of our nation and should be universally condemned."

The White House is clearly leaning into this conversation about our country's foundational values, the preservation of our republic, and who's standing up for democracy while others seek to tear it down.

It may seem an obvious move, but in the recent past, Democratic White House communications teams have often taken a more reticent approach to political disputes, choosing mostly to elevate policy concerns while fielding political questions only when asked.

But the time for that outmoded approach to engaging with the public has passed. With the advent of Trumpism and MAGA Republicans' outright assault on American democracy, a more consistent, unapologetic approach to confronting GOP extremism is called for if Democrats want their message to pierce the media ecosphere. The White House is now clearly and consistently framing the GOP's constant attacks on the rule of law in this country as treasonous—in spirit, at the very least—and challenging any and all Republicans to live up to their oaths of office.

Simply put, it shouldn't be a stretch to say that Trump's call to terminate the Constitution should be "universally condemned" by every officeholder in the land.

Except that, in spite of Trump's special knack for alienating American majorities at the ballot box, Republican leaders still just can't bring themselves to so much as say his name in any negative context whatsoever. Asking Republicans to choose the U.S. Constitution over Trump is still a bridge too far for today's feeble GOP leaders.

Over the past year, President Biden made several legitimate attempts to convey the dangers of Republican attacks on our constitutional democracy. Yet he was regularly panned by pundits and Democratic activists alike for not doing enough to drive a national discourse on the matter.

A review of the many forceful speeches he delivered in his first two years suggested Biden's failure to break through wasn’t for lack of trying. As I concluded in July:

Biden's efforts to challenge the Republican Party and GOP leaders have come across more like one-offs on disparate topics, such as Jan. 6, voting rights, inflation, a Supreme Court decision, etc. The lack of a cohesive unifying narrative has led to some pretty solid and forceful speeches getting lost in the thicket of our pervasive 24/7 news cycle.

The Biden speech that finally did make a splash was his closing midterm message urging voters to protect democracy less than a week out from Election Day.

“This is no ordinary year,” Biden said on Nov 3. “So I ask you to think long and hard about the moment we’re in. In a typical year, we’re often not faced with questions of whether the vote we cast will preserve democracy or put us at risk. But this year, we are.”

Once again, pundits panned the White House for closing on democracy when the entire election would so clearly be driven by the economy. But the election proved Biden and his communications team right—democracy was very much on the ballot.

Now, the White House has taken that message to heart—repeating it at every opportunity provided by an anti-democratic Republican Party in free fall. The White House’s Bates often punctuates his statements with, “You cannot only love America when you win."

If it sounds familiar, it should. Biden used the line on the first anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection, when he delivered a stinging rebuke of Trump. Biden repeated the sentiment again on Sept. 1 when he used a prime-time address to warn Americans about the extremist threat MAGA Republicans pose to the nation.

Instead of airing that prime-time speech live, major TV networks (ABC, NBC, and CBS) aired game shows and reruns of programs like "Law and Order." They reportedly deemed the speech too "political" in nature, while CNN and MSNBC did take it live.

In spite of all the criticism and handwringing over Biden's supposed failure to use his bully pulpit as president, his repeated efforts did manage to reach voters across the country.

In post-election polling of 71 highly competitive House districts, fully 60% of voters called protecting democracy an extremely important consideration that drove them to the polls, exceeding inflation (53%), abortion (47%), and crime (45%). Majorities of both Democrats (73%) and independents (51%) called the issue highly motivating for them.

Whatever the pundits ultimately deem to be their midterm takeaways, the importance of preserving democracy hasn't been lost on the White House press shop. Call it political if you will—basically everything a White House does is. But more importantly, protecting democracy is existential. Voters very much understood that this cycle, and the White House isn't going to let them forget it.

Well, that was an awesome way to finish out the 2022 election cycle! Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard revel in Raphael Warnock's runoff victory on this week's episode of The Downballot and take a deep dive into how it all came together. The Davids dig into the turnout shift between the first and second rounds of voting, what the demographic trends in the metro Atlanta area mean for Republicans, and why Democrats can trace their recent success in Georgia back to a race they lost: the famous Jon Ossoff special election in 2017.

We're also joined by one of our very favorite people, Daily Kos Elections alum Matt Booker, who shares his thoughts on the midterms and tells us about his work these days as a pollster. Matt explains some of the key ways in which private polling differs from public data; how the client surveys he was privy to did not foretell a red wave; and the mechanics of how researchers put together focus groups. Matt also reminisces about his time at "DKE University" and how his experience with us prepared him for the broader world of politics.